SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

This is a bit of a ramble in thoughts as I continue to work through my own recovery and beyond. As few people in my real life know about what I have gone through with infidelity, I thought I would write this down to share to motivate me.

I am turning 60 this year. It feels so weird sometimes. Both my body and mind have taken a real hit over the last 7 years with cancer and the trauma of infidelity. In all this shite, I have had a bit of a mantra about loving and trusting myself, sometimes when I have been curled up in ball from the pain of infidelity, it has helped me to rock me to some sort of sleep. I am way past that now (mostly) and actively working on how I can demonstrate more self love as I grow older in a city where skin clinics are multiplying constantly and wrinkle creams are constantly in my face. I want to genuinely celebrate getting older and loving the changes to my body, including all the wrinkles and most of the time, I am ok with it. But then I'm not. Seven years ago, it was a real possiblity I wouldn't make it and getting through the five years post cancer on meds was a celebration or would have been more so, had it not been overshadowed by the discovery of a f***load of cheating. So as I approach 60, it is my project to work on actively loving my aging self, my scars, my wrinkles, and my slowly greying curly mop as I plan to stop colouring my hair. Using any ideas that make sense, are doable and especially fun - mindfulness, stretching, exercise, gardening, dancing, making sandcastles with my grandson, walking / tramping (hiking) in the bush (forest), laughing and even planning to travel again beyond our shores now our borders are opening properly again. Embrace the crone. I am present and alive and I can do this!

Getbusyliving, I am sending my greetings to you in the land of the long white cloud! I feel like you are on a similar path as I've been on: trying to climb out of the wreckage of infidelity and accept the time it stole from us. I am "married" to an ex-pat kiwi with similar issues to yours. (2nd marriage.) It is hard to know how to celebrate our upcoming 25th wedding anniversary, as it's unbelievable one of us didn't leave! Mostly because he clung to the shreds of the relationship he wrecked, but it's so weird; I'm trying to put it all into perspective.

Age brings its insults as well, and at 71 there are many little "surprises" which I won't belabor. As I age, I find I need to work harder and harder at being my best physical self, and to do that, I first needed - and still need - to fire up compassionate love for myself. (Even though, some days, the tasks of such love take more energy than I have, do you find that to be right? It's like I have to keep up the drill: 'Take those vitamins...don't drink that soda...go for that check-up...get out and exercise some way, sore feet or not...' etc.)

It has really helped me to hang out with older friends in their mid-to-late 70's and compare notes! One friend was widowed 2 years ago and had to completely reinvent her purpose in life. Her children are grown up and away for the most part, and she just needed a reason to get up out of bed every day. At first she didn't care if she died in her sleep! We meet after mornings at church to get breakfast, and I notice as time goes on, she is slowly getting more comfortable talking about herself in the present, rather than always talking about the late, great Husband. Something similar goes on with how we have to emerge from this wreckage, more by remembering ourselves and rejoicing in each new day the sun keeps coming up.

So, my hearty congratulations on being a Survivor! A Survivor of Cancer, of Infidelity, and then having endured through all the Covid insanity! It is your spirit that will carry you through. Very inspiring to read this.

I find that laughing at myself helps a lot. I'm about to go on a bike ride. On my last ride, I was resting after 11 miles that took me almost an hour to ride. At the same spot, 3 people who looked like they were in their late 20s also stopped to rest. They were glowing, beautiful people who had just done 28 miles in less than 2 hours.

Also, I focus on what I can still do much more than on what I've lost, and I focus on what I know now that I didn't know earlier.

And ... you're still so young! (at least from my perspective. )

Best of luck on your project.

@Superesse. Ha, ha yes NZ men. Mine isn't the rugby and beer sort of guy but the influences of our male culture are very strong here. Very non-communicative and then we are such a passive agressive culture who takes things very personally. I think you are right about friendships. I have become much more introverted with covid over the last year and some of my friends have moved away. Women I would go for a walk in the morning with etc. I need to rebuild, I know friendships are so important.

@Sisoon
I totally agree, focussing on what I can still do is so important. We walked one of our great tracks here over our summer in January - the Milford Track. It is 4 days tramping (hiking to you) and allows for very limited numbers so you only are tramping in a smallish group. NZ is quite mountainous /hilly but the track wasn't too bad until the 3rd day. The other trampers were young or youngish and zipped off to climb mountains while we slowly walked and I tried not to "die" up the hills. We did it and I could even look around with a pack load and enjoy the absolute beauty of the fiordlands, especially as we were often on our own as others sped on ahead. It was glorious and a great achievement and I plan to do more.

I love this.

I struggle with self-acceptance, so I may suggest stuff that is too basic for you but here goes:

- if you are a social media user, fill your feed with age-positive people. Grece Ghanem comes to mind but she's an "influencer" so you'll also see her showing off various cremes etc. You should be able to find people who are both age-positive and body-positive.

- it sounds like you've been on a journey a little bit like re-parenting. I have limited experience, but the most powerful mindset shift I can make when struggling is to treat myself like I would treat my own daughter (or my own child-self). When I take a parent role to myself, I'm much more caring, and it reduces the impulse to be covering up blemishes and trying to erase imperfections. Look for inner child meditations, and re-parenting resources.

You've inspired me - I mostly work on brain and body acceptance (I'm neurodiverse and overweight) but age is a good dimension to think about as well. I probably have some hangups there.

Keep a positive mental attitude.

Challenge yourself.

Laugh often.

Positive metal health and self acceptance - so important .

Like everywhere around the world, mental health is a huge issue after two years of covid. Covid / omicron finally spread into our community over the last few months and so many people are just so stressed and now it's winter, which doesn't help. A good time to focus on mental health. We all need to laugh more!

I like the re-parenting idea and probably I have been unconsciously doing that a bit through finding ways to "nurture" myself. I often have to drive places for my job which means I'm in the car by myself for a couple of hours. So often I use that time to do some reflecting. This has often been working through my recovery and sometimes it has been just yelling in anger at my WH and my situation or a truck load of crying. Lately, I have been focussing on what I have achieved and that has become a bit of a mantra which has been great. I go through all the things that I am doing well, or how I have responded to something and not reacted - almost like a mental journal. I talk out loud to myself and it really helps. It is a bit like me parenting myself as I say things that I would say to my daughters. The other thing I do in the car is sing really loudly. I heard someone talking about how being in a choir or singing out loud is so good for us. I sing a lot to my grandson but in the car I am singing at the top of my voice and no one can hear my terrible renditions of Hotel California. I recommend it

I don't know about others here on SI but I hardly ever go on social media anymore. I found it too painful after DD with people sharing their so called happy and amazing lives while my life was in the toilet. I know it is fake but it just felt in my face. The other big mental health / physical health goal has been three years alcohol free. I had given up a few times over the last 6 years but went down the drinking rabbit hole after dd1 and dd2. So thankful I stopped.

getbusyliving, wow, 3 years without alcohol? You are already well on your way to self love and healing!

I know it is not easy to do what you have done! Three years ago, facing a colon cancer scare, I decided a healthy life was more important than the stuff I was using to "get over" The Big Midlife Betrayal, which was doing nothing to help, in any case. So I swore off drinking anything stronger than wine or beer. It isn't like I don't miss the taste, but I realized it had become just a bad habit and my body was paying the price.

Recently WH was told by our Ear Nose and Throat doctor that anything carbonated - including beer - will damage his esophagus. (Never knew that, but I heard the doctor's comments; not even mint chewing gum is safe for a person with his reflux issue.) So now we are rethinking whether to drink alcohol at all.

Anyway, wanted to give you a round of applause. No alcohol is just plain smart!👏🏻👏🏻 How strong you sound!! (I pm'd you BTW.)

@superessse. Thank you and you too! Ka mau te wehi / awesome!

There is clear corelation between my breast cancer and alcohol and I did give up when I was diagnosed but went back on it after a couple of years as a way to deal with all the stress of everything. Of course it doesn't help and I couldn't seem to cut down so knew I had to stop. NZ is finally getting to grips that there are people who still like beer but not the alcohol so there are some nice alcohol free craft beers around. Because there is no alcohol, I don't ever crave to have more than the odd glass. The alcohol free wine is not great yet but there are attempts here. WH was diagnosed with the start of a fatty liver so also has given up for the last three years and that has disappeared. He also gets reflux and his Dad had bad reflux and died of oesophageal cancer at 61 years so there certainly have been incentives not to drink. We live in such a drinking culture and a glass of wine or more is such the norm but I stopped having cravings after about 6 months and when I see people outside on the waterfront drinking a nice glass of wine, I just think about how it would make me feel afterwards, and so have got past the nostalgia of it. I still go to bed grateful I haven't drunk any alcohol that day, and still don't take it for granted. I am a work in progress.